I have been thinking how democracy is just another tool of empire. Religion was used for thousands of years, but now the enlighten use capitalistic democracy to control, they are "so" progressive and smug.

Been following the hysteria regarding the "genocide" that never happened in Aleppo on twitter. Now that Al-Qaeda, and those thousands of civilians who felt it better to be under their rule (and embrace the possibility of bombs raining down on their and that of their children's heads once again) than stay and rebuild their lives in peace, have moved out of Aleppo; there's still some reports of malnutrition, neglect and mistreatment of civilians popping online, but more and more are the positives (such as the christmas celebrations) and actual news taking over the gloom and doom of last week's social media frenzy.

That western narrative will be completely overtaken soon enough by real news and those same people will move on to the next big atrocity to lament about (#StandwithIdlib perhaps?), when the time comes.

Most people will probably forget Aleppo just as fast as they forgot benghazi or fallujah, but at least the day is ours this time.

Talked with my Israeli friends. They are horrified at the US proposal to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The seat of power in is Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem. Getting their permits and visas will now involve travel placing a bullseye on their backs as well as the US embassy. It is like a Pence proposal, precipitating the "end of times", as envisioned by US religious whack jobs calling themselves "evangelists" who are really no different than ISIS.

So Netanyahu, the Zionist King, called Trump, puppet showman to sabotage Resolution; then Trump called al-Sisi and Sissy pulls Resolution.

Now Israel is retaliating against those countries that took up the Resolution after Sissy tried to postpone it until Trump takes office.

Then, on behalf of his Zionist masters; Trump twitters a veiled threat to the U.N. Let's see what he tries to pull on China and Iran. So sorry to break it to you all, but there won't be peace with Trump doing the bidding of Zionism.

Imagine your life destroyed by an occupation with a network of hundreds of foreign military checkpoints on your land. Imagine waiting two hours at a checkpoint just to go to work. Imagine having to endure this as a child going to school and sometimes getting shot. Imagine being forced to give birth at a checkpoint. Imagine not being able to use a toilet all the while you wait in a cattle cage. Imagine every single day have to endure this nightmare just to go from point A to B on your own land!

I'll reserve my sympathy for those who deserve it. Zionists are the architects of misery; unfortunately less often theirs but most often and especially everyone else's.

Zionism is a crime against humanity, and Zionists, I don't care how effing liberal they pretend to be, deserve zero pity and attention.

Of course Israeli's don't want the US Embassy moved to Jerusalem. That would be contrary to their historic bait-and-switch. Cuz once its moved -- defacto -- the population in Jerusalem is acknowledged and PROTECTED. It's called PRAGMATIC diplomacy.

Of course Trump is gonna side with Bibi against the UN. It's called OPTICS. Divide and conquer. Weakening enemies. Don't forget. Trump is a Gemini. He will whip-saw EVERYONE -- friends and foes -- to death. Especially those who consider him "a friend". I doubt if Trump has any REAL friends. Most great men don't. Cuz they know actual friends are burdensome and tend to get in the way. Rather he maintains and leverages relationships and situations to his advantage. And aligns with those who are useful to get him where his gut tells him to go.

Trump is a very interesting character. One which will be studied BIGLY over the next century. His only weakness is ego (which is where we all tend to fail) and his obvious devotion to his youngest child. That feels genuine. And while he seems to favor Ivanka. He didn't stand in the way of her marrying an orthodox jew with very unsavory family connections. He likely figured he couldn't stop her (as a lackluster father) and used it to his advantage. His genius -- aka "magick" -- is making lemonade from lemons. But thus far -- all his progeny are jews. So when you look at what he does -- don't forget where his future DNA is housed. And anticipate accordingly.

I want to thank b and everybody contributing here, which I read frequently, admiring exchange, concern, communication versus cat-fighting. Also re getting perspectives, as with Aleppo. This discussion greatly helps keep in perspective the slant toward corporate neocon news by supposedly "left" oriented sources, now continuously demonizing Russia and avoiding any good news out of East Aleppo. Thank you.

Happy Christmas to all. I have been reading this blog and comments avidly for a year now, and am grateful for the insight and education. Let's hope for peace and truth in 2017. I do think there is hope, tomorrow my Christian family and I will spend the day with 2 Jewish families and a family of Persian Shia muslims. Left to our own devices we humans are quite able to find commonality and friendship among those we are encouraged to distrust.

Found this movie to closely match my own experience in Afghanistan, and has kind of a cinema verite thing going, with an uplifting final message, might interest millenials watching TV at Xmas dinner, since they'll be the next ones sent off to, 'fight them over there, so we can immigrate them over here'.

As a Taliban leader joked with me, "I love your Jesus, but hate your Christ!" (then blew up the guest house where we had just left, lol)

Remember, the Wall Street Khazars make money when the market's going up, but They also make money when you're screaming 'Sell!', waiting for a broker to take your order, because 'sell at market' is falling too fast, and you know they won't close you out until the very low of the day, lol.

Found it enlightening that 2016 only heard one reference to Anne Franke this year, and no Schindler's List, whew, instead, the Blood Libelers are running heavy psyop on the Barbary Pirates depredations by Islam of MENA and EU Christians some 700 years ago, while glamorizing their Bolshevik Revolution of 100 years ago, you know, where the Khazars slaughtered the Christian Tzar, then sent the Russian crown jewels and bullion off to NYC to fund the private Fed Bank, (the same bullion trick the Israeli Junta Coup used on Christian Ukraine) before sending 65,000,000 Christians off to Siberia to die for Ba'al and Moloch.

But it's all good. It's just business, get over it!
On to Tehran for the One Party of Mil.Gov.Corp!
Trumphim ahkbar! Mar-a-lago! Lu-lu-lu-lu-lu!

Give a prayer to Venezuela as you tuck into that plum pudding Sunday, and shout out 'Hope and Chains!' that when Modi's done privatizing India for the Khazars in London, all those disenfranchised 100,000,000s of Hindus and Brahmans don't emigrate to US and EU.

I deeply wish a blessed and peaceful Christmas to everyone, safety and solace to the battered regions of the earth who are our brethren all, penitence and redemption to those who blindly continue to crucify our children, and I hope above all for the enlightenment which comes with understanding, for ourselves, our neighbors, our precious and fragile earth. Thank you, b, for all you do.

Merry Christmas to all and may 2017 be a good year for B and everyone here at MoA, readers, visitors, lurkers all!

Let's wish that the war in Syria has finally been won with the liberation of Aleppo and other cities and towns in Syria, and that the nation can finally rebuild and send out messages of hope and reconciliation, and be an example to the rest of us.

Thanks B for all your efforts in shining a light in the darkness in which we presently live. Thanks also to the various regular contributors for their discussions and support.

Yuletide greetings & happy winter solstice all you people in the North. I'm off to do something crazy - cook a big mob of winter food on a hot summer's day so the family can enjoy a whitefella tradition that hopefully one day will be celebrated on Matariki in June when enjoying hot food on a cold winter's day is somewhat more appropriate.
But seriously that won't stop everyone having a good time today, the younger members of the whanau have been up since sparrow fart ripping into gifts and shrieking at the silliest ones. Just as it should be.
I trust all of you have a happy peaceful day as well.

We Sag's have few illusions. Particularly pertaining to Gemini's. Which is likely the reason Gem's tend to be drawn to Sag's. Kinda like cats to people with feline allergies. Cuz the truly intelligent hate ass-kissers. And know the value of TRUTH-tellers.

I went to the Bethlehem Association site, backed off the now-nonexistent main page, and discovered that the new president lives in Orange County CA, USA. There may have been a coup at the Bethlehem Association?

Hope?,now you have become a fake site!Tell me what has religion done for humanity?.This 2000 years of propaganda has killed millions but it doesn't bother you drink up your champagne and gorge on Turkey and pray Jesus save your soul, if Christ came back today he will puke how his name has been hijacked.All religions are fake and anybody who dont see this fact are ignorant fools ripe to be harvested by 'we vs them' charlatans,

As God demonstrated His stubborn faith in us by trusting us with the gift of Christ, may we all be renewed to hope in the relationships that make our world despite the darkness that threatens to overwhelm us....

This is probably a good time to remind every one that even though things look bleak in the Middle East and it looks like no two religious groups can get along, that isn't actually the full truth and isn't always the way it has been. As black as Syria has been the last few years any one following this site knows it isn't the full story. Muslims helping Christians put their churches back together, multi-denomination prayers, a Shia choir singing Silent Night are all things we have seen on the other side of the ledger in Syria.

While Trump wants to appear as the 'defender' of Israel, he may have discreetly encouraged Obama in not vetoing the UN resolution. That puts Netanyahu is a fragile situation and begging for Trump's support.
Israel is now looking at Trump as the friend and Obama as the enemy they are getting rid of. Yet they are on for some disappointments. Trump will require them to pay for everything the USA use to give them for free! The promised USA embassy's move to Jerusalem will have so many conditions attached that Israel will stop asking for it.
It doesn't look that it will a honeymoon with Trump either!

Anybody putting hope in religions for their utter ignorance of the truth definitely needs 'god's help.Religion is just tools used for slavery of the ignorant.Christianity and Islam, whats their contribution to humanity come on look at the facts its staring in your eyes!..fools...hope yeah hope religious beliefs help us!

Derrick Jensen has an interesting perspective on hope.
I’m don’t necessarily subscribe to this take on hope but it has definitely stimulated my thinking about it and I consider it whenever I hear anyone, including myself, invoke hope.
Some excerpts from the above link:

The more I understand hope, the more I realize that instead of hope being a comfort, that all along it deserved to be in the box with the plagues, sorrow, and mischief; that it serves the needs of those in power as surely as a belief in a distant heaven; that hope is really nothing more than a secular version of the same old heaven/nirvana mindfuck.
…

I hope that the next time I get on a plane, it doesn’t crash. To hope for some result means you have no agency concerning it
…

In my words as I understand Jensen’s view of hope, I do hope for things I have no agency over like the plane I’m flying on does’t crash (unless of course I’m the pilot). I don’t hope I get a paycheck. I go to work and earn one. I don’t hope for “peace on earth”, I live peacefully and try to imbue that attitude on others by my behavior toward them.

My ambivalence with this idea of hope is great. So with great respect for our host, b, I do

Hope for more light and new beginnings, needed as much today than ever. Hope for walls to come down.

[.]”Israel is now looking at Trump as the friend and Obama as the enemy they are getting rid of. Yet they are on for some disappointments. Trump will require them to pay for everything the USA use to give them for free! The promised USA embassy's move to Jerusalem will have so many conditions attached that Israel will stop asking for it.

For contemplation: sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

It might be argued that Obama’s decision not to veto the Resolution shows his true decent instincts once political machination is no longer a factor. I have been undecided whether he is a decent but timid man prepared to go along with the machinations of hard power without any fights that would make his own life less comfortable, or a total charlatan who was always just a puppet of the powerful. It took eight years for me to tend towards the slightly less appalling option. Certainly Hillary, an uncompromising Zionist who refused to condemn illegal settlements when Bernie Sanders did so, would have vetoed the resolution. In a strange way, Trump’s victory allowed it to pass; if Clinton had won, Obama would have very probably felt bound to defer to her wish to veto it.

Religions are just like nations, or cities, or families, they're the pots that we're planted in, the banzai that shapes us, at least those who are privileged by the gods of Dumb Luck not to have to sleep on the dirt in a skin-and-stick hut and cook their meal on dried animal dung. Don't confuse organized religion for the One Mind of the Cosmos. It is real, I can assure you. That's what's truly terrifying. It is real. It supports us, but we don't know what it wants. Is it the Blue Monkey Gods of the Hindus, or the Self-Not Self Realization of the Buddhists? Nobody knows, except maybe the animals, and they're not talking to us.

Really? How long the talks and talks been going for one or two States.... Forty plus years! Meanwhile Palestinians and Palestine slowly disappearing. Soon there will no Palestinians nor Palestine.

Recently Google’s maps eliminate Palestine, show only the States of Israel....

I still remember the 1967 war while in college, my Econ. 101 professor a Jew. He updated daily events before every lecture - Israel armies swept across the Sinai desert. Me like most of my classmates were rotting for the "good" guys - Israel!

Further, given the orchestra which played in Palmyra so movingly, one can only wonder, speculate, whether they were also going to make a surprise visit to Aleppo, where some are now sort of celebrating liberation and a frail Christmas. I weep.

Sadly the plane carrying the Russian military choir Alexandrov and others crashed this morning into the Black Sea on its way to Syria. A western cultural institution vanishes. The consequences for family, friends and nation are of course incalculable. Another notable loss.

Here's to a hope indeed, and a determined vigilance regarding these psychopaths in power who have so comprehensively destroyed any prospect of a balanced and creative world. May 2017 be one where we see the tide turning in favour of at least a level playing field where evil's dynamics are truly seen and understood. Many thanks for your blogging.

There can be no peace in the Holy Land with Bibi raising hell for not getting his way via the US/UN for any criticism of his actions. At least he can be criticized for this in Israel itself in places like Haaretz. (see how twisted US media is) He's a squeaky wheel that needs to be greased and we have the mechanics and grease guns to do so.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all. I would far rather get my news from an alt ("fake") news source like this one than the big boys ... who should get coal in their stockings along with pink slips.

Turkey opened borders BEING ASKED SO BY THE EU/US, i.e. Qatar, as part of a magical plan to empty EU/UK suburbs of young Islamists. They thought a pay back for participating in the Libya scam would come. According to this book (check for the phrase "Turkish workers Libya") Aaron Stein, Turkey's New Foreign Policy: Davutoglu, the AKP and the Pursuit of Regional Order, they had early 2011 60 billion $ of projected investments in Libya. They must have been told they would get 50/50 of the money made by Qatar exporting Libyan natural gas! In exchange they ended up having to supervise IS oilfields.

Joining Quentin and Felicity in expression of sympathetic grief at the tragic loss of so many of Russia's finest artists who were travelling to bring the joy of music to hard pressed Syria. Christmas time is always a time of light in the darkness, and while the Russians celebrate Christmas thirteen days from now, the season has already begun. The first words of God in Genesis took on the task of separating light from darkness, which ongoing task John echoes in the opening verses of his Gospel:

"The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness has not overcome it.

I read that the Russians are setting up light towers surrounding the scene of the crash. It was said at RT that the weather was good for flying, so these lights stand watch and are emblematic as the darkness descends.

The light shines in the darkness
And the darkness has not overcome it.

Memory eternal for these beautiful souls.

The light shines in the darkness
And the darkness has not overcome it.

Such a great person writes this column. Such wonderful people read it and respond with love and empathy for all humanity. Thanks to the Man on the Moon who brings us truth. God bless you and Merry Christmas.

Joining Quentin and Felicity in expression of sympathetic grief at the tragic loss of so many of Russia's finest artists who were travelling to bring the joy of music to hard pressed Syria. Christmas time is always a time of light in the darkness, and while the Russians celebrate Christmas thirteen days from now, the season has already begun.

Hope is Vladimir Putin. He show great courage and fortitude against a combine force: Amerika (most powerful superpowers on earth), NATO, Terrorists (Daesh, IS, al-Qaida) and MSM. Calm and forceful against an invincible force in Syria and prevails.

Russian Federation suffers immensely. Turkey F-16 shoots down SU-24M and terrorist on the ground take the live of the pilot. Two mishaps on Admiral Kuznetsov. Terrorists bombed a field hospital in Aleppo taking three Russians' medics helping Syrians from Aleppo. Terrorists planted explosive devices on board Airbus A321 taking 224 lives in the Sinai Desert. Shooting Russian Ambassador on the back, lastly mishap Russian’s military plane with ninety-two, on board Red Army Choir and Reporters downed in Black Sea.

The next hope will be Xi of China, facing Amerika, India and wartime arch enemy Japan.

My deepest condolence to the people of Russia for the latest ninety-two lives lost doing what is right.

Hope is also Eva Bartlett, an independent Canadian journalist, Vanessa Beeley and Patrick Henningsen 21st Centuries Wire. They independently exposed the White Helmets to the world. Without them most of us remain clueless.

Thank you Berhard for the huge contribution you have made, day by day, to shining the light of truth of what has happened in Syria.

For today, with the death of the majority of the wonderful Alexandrov Ensemble in a plane crash I hope people will listen to their beautiful songs, which yet again reminds us of the richness and depth of Russian culture. A great loss.

If not for the three recent attacks, my first thought would be mechanical failure. However, in context, the loss of the Tu-154 looks like an attack against Russian values - it's magnificent choir on one of its holy days. This is possibly an attempt to stir up Russians against Putin's perceived inaction in defending Russians (i.e. Putin isn't following the US script where he is supposed to lash out when provoked so the US can then totally sanction Russia).

The international reaction is interesting:

Russian liberals and Ukrops are united in the joy at the death of Russians.

Wishing the blog author and all contributors a safe festive season. It is a special place this old-school venue...the thirst for informed truth found here, without fanfare, makes it a triumph of the collective human spirit..about as religious as I get.

Russian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Russian Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. They number a core population of around 900,000, and enlarged population of up to 1,200,000, if including Halakhally non-Jewish members of Jewish households. Israel population 8 millions.

Bibi, being of Lithuanian stock, should know fine and well that you simply do not piss the Russians off or they will kill you, probably in a cruel and painful fashion; just ask the Germans what Russian vengeance is like. Mossad is certainly not above eliminating a leader and as Jeffrey Silverman, VT’s man in Russia and himself a Jew points out that:

“It might be a ploy within Mossad to get rid of Bibi, as Mossad is too independent minded to take him too seriously, and he is a greater threat to the Jewish State than any enemy, “real or perceived.”

Merry Christmas to you and yours, b. I share your wishes for hope and peace. A lot of people are using "peace" as a signoff or salutation here now, which hasn't been a widespread thing for decades.

Of course the warmongers constantly worry about it and are always going on about the perils of the American public's tendency toward "isolationism". Most people worry about war. Our warmongers worry about not enough of it.

I believe he campaigned on DOPE, successfully too as our Streets and Avenues are awash in a sea of cheap Afghan Heroin killing our young men by the thousands. Pair that with 4,000+ dead blacks in his hometown of Chicago. Pretty high body count for a Nobel Prize Winner?

Here's another link to b's picture of Bethlehem and The Wall, and one to a billboard in the USA depicting Mary and Joseph approaching The Wall, and last, but not least, a link to those who made The Wall possible.